Hoylake’s ‘remarkable’ new lifeboat station is opened

Feb 11 2009 by Sue McCann, Birkenhead News

A REVOLUTIONARY lifeboat station that will cut rescue times has opened in Wirral.

The Hoylake RNLI lifeboat Lady of Hilbre left her former station on Alderley Road at the weekend, to move to the charity’s most energy-efficient building to date.

The new set-up will shave at least five crucial minutes off response times, as the tractor and boat used in a rescue are already joined together in the station.

Previously, volunteers would have spent time hitching the boat to the tractor, before they could set out to sea.

Lifeboat operations manager John Curry said: “It is a remarkable boathouse.

“We cannot praise the design or the builders highly enough, it is such a fantastic building and we are very happy to have now moved in.

“The most important aspect is we will now be able to cut response times.

“It is also very energy-efficient.

“Our heating is completely free to run now, because of a system that uses energy and heat from underneath the sand and brings it to underneath the new building to warm it up.

“It is wonderful, we didn’t have space to talk to people privately before, we only had one room – we are all very pleased with it.”

The cost of the new station, along with a new lifeboat, stands at £5m, of which £2m needs to come from fundraising efforts.

So far, the public has helped to collect nearly £1m, but the appeal is still running for the replacement lifeboat, which is yet to be made.